NVIDIA Audio...

Between NVIDIA itself and windows 10, no matter what I do the NVIDIA audio driver tries to install itself as an audio device. I always do a custom install of the drivers but something will always inadvertently install the stupid NVIDIA driver. Anyone know how to avoid this? It drives me nuts.

Problem is, I want my graphics card. I can't afford to have a PC just for a DAW. This is my only PC

I realize that but even though I custom install the graphics driver and make sure that a deselect the HD Audio... something still ends up installing it.

Looks like it was windows that installed it this time, for some reason.
screen capture freeware
 

I read on a computer forum about how windows 10 will over write proper manufacturers video drivers with generic drivers when it does an update. This was happening to me on my office computer. Then the video card app would tell me I need to update? I'd run the update from the app and windows would tell me I already have the best driver?? turns out there is no w10 driver for my card which sucks because it's only 2 years old. Nvidia g force 610.

Did you try disabling the driver in device manager? That's where I did it and it seems to have stuck.

husker
I'm a bit confused - there is an NVidia audio driver on your AMD Radeon card?

My bad.
- I'm using an AMD Radeon card.
- There's an NVidia driver listed in Device Manager. (I expect I can kill that.) 
- The drivers that reference the HD Audio Bus appear to be AMD.
- The listing in System Devices is not labelled AMD, but when disabled, the AMD High Definition Audio Device listed under Sound, video and game controllers goes away.
- Both the AMD High Definition Audio Device and High Definition Audio Controller reappear with every power on. 
-  Have tried both disable and uninstall from Device Manager.
 
@husker. fwiw, I'm trying out the Tascam US-20x20. Not out of the woods yet, still seeing Audio Dropout toasts in SONAR, but seems to run/edit OK. Still playing with buffer settings, but would like to nail down this HD Audio Bus issue. It made a big difference on the last configuration. 
 
cheers,

@husker.
 
Had indeed run through that thread, no progress. Hacking the registry a bit but the weeds keep growing back.
 
I'm able to get through sessions, but not confident in this configuration yet.
 
Thx.

@husker.
 
Thx, any effort/insight much appreciated.
 
Better info:
- AMD Radeon HD 5450 2MB (basic card, no need for more with a dedicated DAW)
- Asus X99A mb
- Win10 Pro, Version 1607 Build 14393.693 
 
And just to confirm. I've tried to both disable and uninstall the AMD driver. 
Returns with every power off/on cycle.
 
Not finding any way to disable it in the BIOS.
 
Haven't had time for definitive troubleshooting but not recalling issues when remembering to disable the HD Audio Controller before starting a session. Have run some low risk sessions without disabling it, but not sure it's as rock solid as it used to be.
 
Of course, could be an issue with the Tascam drivers/firmware (I have the latest). Still checking out buffer settings and USB 3.0 vs. 3.1 ports, etc. 
 
fwiw, the NVidia bits must have been left over from a previous install... I doubt they have any bearing on the problem, trying to kill any remnants scattered throughout the registry as a best practice. (Uninstall from Programs & Features does nothing.)
 
 

Sycraft
I don't think it will cause any problems. I use nVidia's HD audio as my normal system audio and then have a pro card for Sonar. Both coexist fine and don't seem to butt heads.

It depends. Some people seem to have a problem with the HD driver and some don't.
It makes no difference on my system whether it is enabled or disabled.
 
I suspect that it was a buggy driver update from a year or two ago that started all this.
I suspect that the HD driver has long been fixed and is no longer a problem.
 
 

@husker. Thx for checking, it is helpful. 
 
I used to be able to disable the HD Audio bus/controller (thx to CA for noting the issue) and DAW performance was flawless for the longest time. I generally try to keep Win10/SONAR updates coordinated but the Nov update seems to have disrupted the equilibrium. Both the Win10 and Sonar updates were checked out on a sandbox PC before upgrading with NO problems there, which has me looking at any cfg issues in detail on this DAW. 
 
Some of the registry keys for NVidia were referencing amdx64 somethings which is why I was trying to root them out.
 
Still working on a robust configuration for the US-20x20. Still seeing audio dropouts when speed comping fairly heavy vocal stacks. Could easily be a sonar buffer/tascam driver setting, but these projects ran fine before. And yeah, doing additional file housekeeping to eliminate that as an issue (save as cwb, etc.).
 
I'll post an update if I can come up with anything definitive. 
 
Thx again.